Parent Thread

Oblio_sl said:

So I gave my 3.5 year old a gift a little bit early.

The transition to the toddler bed has been rough for him. So in order to encourage him to sleep in his own bed I got him a Lightning McQueen Bed.

I set it all up and put Car's Decals on the walls, I then got the video camera out and called out for him to come to his room. The reaction I got was priceless, I will admit I teared up a bit. Funny how much your kid's emotions can effect you.

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Nice. My 4 year old would love that. He's already in a full size bed though so I need to hope he never see's a picture of this.

It is pretty scary how much they can effect you.

Tarrant_sl said:

My youngest son's progression is becoming frustrating, not though any fault of his own but it's really frustrating for me.

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My niece has the same thing. She clearly understands what you say but doesnt talk yet and just turned 2 a month ago. I'm sure it's frustrating but it's one of those things where once they start talking you forget all about it.

I have two boys 8 & 6, and a little girl on the way in 4 months. The two boys are so different it is scarey, they have been raised the same but you could not get two unalike people if you tried. The oldest is for the most part very well behaved he has the odd moments but overall you would say he was a very good kid. The youngest is a nutter completely out of control at times and has no concept of right and wrong. He gets in so much trouble at school and at home and nothing we do or say makes any difference, the school are in the same boat they don't know what to do with him. We got pulled aside by the teacher on Monday because he decided to pull down all the Christmas decorations in the class room. But at the same time he can do the most kindest things you will ever see a kid do, we was at a mates wedding the other month and he saw this young girl on her own afraid to join in with the other kids so he picked some flowers off the grass and handed them to her and then she started joining in all the other kids. He teacher also says that when he does behave he is one of the nicest kids she has ever had and is really nice to all the other children and is quite ahead of the class with his Reading and Maths. At times you feel like a bad parent but then I look at the other one and like I said he is good as gold.

I am also quite lucky in the fact that my older son loves Football or soccer as you lot like to call it, he is not interested in kids programs at all he just puts on sports 24/7 when I let him use my laptop he just searches for football related sites nothing else interested him at all except sports mainly football and running but he like all sports generally. I also love all sports so it gives us a great chance to bond and I spend every Saturday and Sunday carting him around training, and matches as well as taking him to watch out local team play most weekends. The youngest one loves WWE and Transformers and he wants to be a power ranger when he grows up so I sit down with him and watch all the crap except the WWE I cannot sit there through that.

Wanad - maybe your younger kid senses that you favor the older one because of his hobbies and demeanor, and acts out for attention. Not a parent - just a guess

Tarrant - Your kid is going to be a mime. Sorry.

Dabamf_sl said:

Wanad - maybe your younger kid senses that you favor the older one because of his hobbies and demeanor, and acts out for attention. Not a parent - just a guess

Tarrant - Your kid is going to be a mime. Sorry.

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The youngest get plenty of time with me he likes the xbox and wii so we play the lego games together all the time, it is not a attention seeking thing, it is just his personality. The point of my post really was to point out to people that no matter how you raise your children ultimately it is how there personality develops that determines what kind of child they are. Like I said I have 2 raised the same and one is good as gold the other can be a complete nightmare to deal with.

Tarrant_sl said:

My youngest son's progression is becoming frustrating, not though any fault of his own but it's really frustrating for me.

He turned 2 in September and he isn't talking. He understands everything you say, like I can say "Noah, daddys phone is on the bed, can you please go get it?" He knows what I said and runs to my bedroom and grabs my phone. I can ask him pretty much everything and he knows what it is and what to do if it's a situation that requires reacting...but he refuses to talk. He knows words, once he learns them though, he will use them a few times and then will not want to say them anymore. He pretty much sticks to "no, oh no, there, thanks, meow (when pointing at our cat...he knows the word kitty)" along with a smattering of other words. He's used many other words before, not the full range I'd like, but he knows the words, he understands the words....but refuses to use them. When he wants something he will get frustrated because he can't communicate what he wants and will slap his leg.

I enrolled him in early childhood development to try to begin learning new methods on how to coax him to talk more, we've been doing it for almost a month now with some limited success, hopefully it will continue to work with him.

My middle child was somewhat the same as this, she didn't refuse to speak though like my youngest does. He will flat out get pissed at you and run away if you ask him to say a word. My middle child just didn't start chattering non stop until she was like 2 1/2, but at least she would still say what words she did know.

-sigh- I feel like a bad father when he does these things, like I'm failing him in some way. Early Childhood Development sees us interacting and tells me I am doing everything right and are surprised at the levels of interactions he and I have and are having a hard time explaining it all at this point too.

I just hope this doesn't effect him more as he gets older. The kid is super smart, he can problem solve with the best of them...he just refuses to talk.

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Have you had his hearing tested? That turned out to be a huge factor in my second daughter. Getting tubes in her ears helped tremendously, although she still doesn't speak like our older girl does she is light years ahead of where she was.

We also did the county's childhood development program for kids with developmental delays. That was kind of hard for my ego, to admit "hey she isn't like other kids..." but it turned out for the best. The program was really good and helpful. It isn't anything wrong you're doing, sometimes shit just happens. It doesn't mean anything about when he is older, either. In my wife's childhood development classes they teach that kids who are ahead or behind the milestones early on almost always even out with the pack once grade school hits. I'm sure there is no reason for you not to expect that with your son. I expect that with my daughter. Really, over the past year of speech therapy and ear tubes and whatever, I have already seen that strt to happen so I am pretty ok with it.

Tarrant_sl said:

My youngest son's progression is becoming frustrating, not though any fault of his own but it's really frustrating for me.

He turned 2 in September and he isn't talking. He understands everything you say, like I can say "Noah, daddys phone is on the bed, can you please go get it?" He knows what I said and runs to my bedroom and grabs my phone. I can ask him pretty much everything and he knows what it is and what to do if it's a situation that requires reacting...but he refuses to talk. He knows words, once he learns them though, he will use them a few times and then will not want to say them anymore. He pretty much sticks to "no, oh no, there, thanks, meow (when pointing at our cat...he knows the word kitty)" along with a smattering of other words. He's used many other words before, not the full range I'd like, but he knows the words, he understands the words....but refuses to use them. When he wants something he will get frustrated because he can't communicate what he wants and will slap his leg.

I enrolled him in early childhood development to try to begin learning new methods on how to coax him to talk more, we've been doing it for almost a month now with some limited success, hopefully it will continue to work with him.

My middle child was somewhat the same as this, she didn't refuse to speak though like my youngest does. He will flat out get pissed at you and run away if you ask him to say a word. My middle child just didn't start chattering non stop until she was like 2 1/2, but at least she would still say what words she did know.

-sigh- I feel like a bad father when he does these things, like I'm failing him in some way. Early Childhood Development sees us interacting and tells me I am doing everything right and are surprised at the levels of interactions he and I have and are having a hard time explaining it all at this point too.

I just hope this doesn't effect him more as he gets older. The kid is super smart, he can problem solve with the best of them...he just refuses to talk.

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This sounds just like my 3.5 year old. She had/has a speech delay, which we realized at a very early age. We tried a few different speech therapists but a lot of them jerked us around and we didn't make any progress. The speech delay began to effect other areas of her life. Because of the total lack of communication, she became a very frustrated and angry little girl. She could not interact properly with other children and they would often ignore her because she made no sense to them even though she was the same size as them. Her speech delays became overall developmental delays - social, emotional, motor, etc. Finally when she turned 3 she became eligible for the state special needs program so we had her tested and they concluded everything we already knew. She began a head start preschool program just over a month ago and is making so much progress.

It has been hard and really upsetting seeing her struggle. She is changing so much now, communicating better, talking up a storm, having better interactions with other kids. If you feel your child has a problem, seek help and MAKE them listen. Speech problems can lead to bigger things and it helps to begin work on them early. I would also recommend a speech therapy programs which has your child with other kids a couple times a week so he keeps up on a social levels which can fall behind quickly.

Okay. My son turns 3 in February. We're currently trying to potty train. At first it was just refusal to even sit on the potty. We slowly got him used to sitting on it. Then we got him used to sitting on it without his diaper. We'll keep him on it for sometimes upwards of an hour. Not forcing him to sit on it, but we keep him entertained while he's on it so he doesn't worry about getting fed up. Last week he peed in it 3 times in one day. Each time he said "I did it." and there was much praise. Showed him where and how to dump the pee, etc. This week is a complete backstep or two. He refuses to sit on it, and now, even the mention of "potty" causes him to throw an all out tantrum, complete with throwing himself to the floor...

Anyone have this happen during potty training? How did you work through it? Other tips and pointers?

Take the baby alligator out of it.

Tarrant_sl said:

Yeah his hearing is fine, like I said, I can ask him to do something and he knows what to do, understands fully. This morning before I left for work I asked him to go put his cup in the fridge if he wasn't going to drink anymore milk and he went and did so. The kid is smart and knows what you're saying and understands stuff. He knows words, the little bugger just refuses to say them and acts like he doesn't know them...but he does on account he's used them in the past and then progressed in not wanting to use them anymore.

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This is why I brought up the hearing, because it sounds very similar to how my daughter would act. She clearly understood what was said to her, and even used some words, but would often stop using them. I'm sure the people you are working with are on top of it, I just bring it up because it never occurred to me. It was obvious she could hear us, she could follow directions and stuff like that. The ENT doctor and hearing specialist explained to us that due to water in her ears, she was hearing everything like some crazy alien language.

The sign language was a huge deal though. I thought it was bullshit. But seeing her use sign language to communicate was really amazing to me.

mizovax_sl said:

Okay. My son turns 3 in February. We're currently trying to potty train. At first it was just refusal to even sit on the potty. We slowly got him used to sitting on it. Then we got him used to sitting on it without his diaper. We'll keep him on it for sometimes upwards of an hour. Not forcing him to sit on it, but we keep him entertained while he's on it so he doesn't worry about getting fed up. Last week he peed in it 3 times in one day. Each time he said "I did it." and there was much praise. Showed him where and how to dump the pee, etc. This week is a complete backstep or two. He refuses to sit on it, and now, even the mention of "potty" causes him to throw an all out tantrum, complete with throwing himself to the floor...

Anyone have this happen during potty training? How did you work through it? Other tips and pointers?

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Man, I just gave up on potty training our 2 year old. The 3 year, she potty trained in a day. We just took her pullups away and he just started going. The 2 year old gives zero fucks. She shit on my floor. SHIT ON MY FLOOR. So yeah, either she isn't ready yet or we need a different strategy. She'll sit on the potty, but she won't go.

We didn't. It literally never occurred to us, but the county wanted a hearing test as part of their developmental delay program and our pediatrician recommended it as well. So we took her to an ENT doctor who referred us to an audiologist that had a setup specifically for toddlers. They did the tests and showed us the results in real time and explained it pretty well, at least in layman's terms. Fluid was collecting in her inner ear for some reason, basically garbling everything. So it explained why she appeared to be able to hear, because she could hear, but it was just like everything was under a foot of water. The problem came when she tried to recreate those sounds.

Of course I have no idea if this is your case, I always bring it up to other parents who see a delay in speech in their kid though because it is so off the wall, at least to me, that I never would have thought to ask our pediatrician if the speech therapy people hadn't brought it up.